Lyrical Love Letter

It took two days for Juliette, Alex, and company to finally work up the nerve to leave the safe heaven that was their hotel room. Leaving it, they knew, would mean facing the real world and never turning back. It meant facing change and heartache head on bravely, taking each internal injury with stride.

It was not an easy thing to do but it was the only thing they could do—they simply had no choice. Like it or not, kicking and screaming, reality was going to come knocking cold heartedly and relentless.

The return to Maryland was unlike their journey to California. It was not light hearted, laughable, exciting, freeing. It was, on the contrary, heavyhearted, somber silence, dread, restrained. Every one of these emotions was felt in every corner of their cars.
It seemed to have the most obvious affect on Jack Barakat. Jack, who could not be touched by somberness with a ten-foot pole, was utterly silent for over 100 miles of their travel back.

Missy sat beside him, their hands intertwined and her head on his shoulder, the only comfort she could convey to him in the cramped moving vehicle.

Declan, unable to deal with driving his own car at the moment, was keeping himself busy on his phone, detached from the rest as he focused on the mobile device, unable to drown in their emotions like all the others.

Juliette, who was in the driver’s seat of the car, was finding it hard to focus solely on the deceivingly open road before her, for her mind was traveling to each individual in the car as well as those traveling in the one behind them. But most presently her mind drifted to the boy’s whose fingers were laced with hers between the console, his thumb rubbing absent mindedly over the back of her hand.

In the car directly behind them, flashy and zipping down the road, was Jonnie behind the wheel. With Juliette driving her own car Declan had no choice but to begrudgingly entrust Jonnie with his car in his decision not to drive. Jonnie’s hands were gripping the steering wheel white knuckled, her subconscious mind filling with dread to such a degree that this was the only way in which her body could release the tension within her, strung taunt like a wire.

Zack sat silently in the passenger seat. He had no idea what to say to Jonnie, his mind drew an utter blank when it came to attempting to comfort her. But Zack’s mind was still trying to process what it was exactly that he and Jonnie were, none the less work out how to comfort the strong, tough exterior girl beside him.

Rian and Kara were seated in the back seat, his arm around her as she slept on his shoulder. Zack’s eyes flickered up to the rearview mirror and Rian caught his glance. Turning away, Zack fixed his eyes out the window suddenly feeling unfairly bitter towards his friend in the light that Rian would always have Kara and Zack, in a few short weeks, would forever loose Jonnie.

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It was 300 miles before the friends decided to take a much needed rest in the form of a 3 am breakfast and bathroom break.

Juliette and Jonnie were sitting side by side on one side of the red leather booth while Alex and Zack sat across from them. Neither Juliette nor Jonnie spoke, both jaws locked, both hands resting on the table in front of them, neither looking at the boys they loved.

Alex could nearly see it as though it where a visible thing before him, the silent act of Juliette and Jonnie trying to shut down and push them both away. He could see it in the way they sat, the way they refused to look at both he and Zack, he could see it in the way their bodies turned slightly toward each other as though it were only in each other they could find comfort now.

Zack glanced at Alex, like the singer Zack had no idea what to say to Jonnie, no idea what to say to make it better; because this was the one problem they could not seem to make better.
There were no words that could comfort the girls for they were in a place where comfort simply could not exist. Because Alex and Zack were the girls comfort and the girls were all too painfully aware of the fact that soon they would loose them permanently.

Unable to take it anymore, Alex wordlessly reached for Juliette’s hand and stuffed a crumpled napkin into it before he slid out of the booth without looking at her and made his way toward the bathroom.

Juliette blinked once as though broken from a trance before she stared down at the crumpled napkin, blue ballpoint pen engraved into the frail material. Her eyes scanned over the little white paper napkin once and her heart broke that much more as her eyes closed, internalizing every bit of it. Her heart, while prematurely breaking with the loss of Alex, was also breaking with the simple gesture of a lyrical note. It signified everything that Alex and Juliette had built their relationship upon and in the anticipation of permanently loosing him, the bitter sweetness of it sent held back tears streaming down her face.

Baby, can I talk to you? I know something's wrong
Things just ain't the same but deep down inside I know you still care
So tell me what to do to get things back
The way they used to be

Because I love you.

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Juliette felt as though she were floating, it felt like she was disconnected from her body. She couldn’t make her arms move, she couldn’t force her legs to make that last bit of effort to slide out of the booth after Alex for what felt like a very long time. But eventually Juliette found her inner strength and slowly she slid from the booth lethargically.

Zack, somehow feeling responsible for Juliette in Alex’s absence, gazed up at her cautiously. His muscles tensed as though ready to catch her and restrain her to the booth if she dared bolting from the diner.

“Juliette?”

But she didn’t respond, she just swallowed hard and retraced Alex’s steps to where she knew him to be in the bathrooms.

If Juliette had given it a moment’s thought she may have decided against barging into a public Men’s Room but she hadn’t and so Juliette found herself in the Men’s Room.

Alex was leaning against the porcelain sinks, his arms crossed over his chest looking at her expectantly, because he had after all been waiting for her. Suddenly Juliette felt like a vulnerable, stupid little girl. She had no idea what to say to Alex, she only knew that she had to be in his presence, craving it like sunlight.

Alex shrugged himself away from the sinks and approached her slowly. Juliette was hyperaware of every move he made as his eyes stayed locked with her as he came within mere inches of her. Juliette didn’t know what to expect: for him to kiss her maybe? Hug her maybe? But he did neither of these things; instead he reached behind her and locked the bathroom door. A certain thrill ran through Juliette as she heard the lock click but she was still too numb to really acknowledge the sensation.

Alex’s gaze flickered from her oaken orbs to her lips, before returning to her eyes, brown orbs that were so wide with vulnerability that he could see himself in them.

His hand found its place against the silky smooth feel of her cheek suddenly feeling so lost in her presence and pain that he didn’t know whether to wrap her in his arms as though she were a child and protect her from the world, or show her just how close he was to her when she looked at him as though he were a million miles away.

“You’re breaking my heart.” He murmured to her, his thumb running over the contours of her lips. She looked so frail to him, so breakable. He could never have imagined he’d ever see her this way in a million years; in many ways he wished he never would.

She closed her eyes tight and her small cold hand found its way atop his large warm one that rest against her cheek and squeezed it.

“I feel like I can’t breathe.” She admitted, her eyes still screwed shut. “I feel lost. I’m scared, Alex.”

Alex opened his mouth to speak but decided against it. It had taken many months for Alex to grow to know Juliette fuller than anyone else ever would and this was one of those time in which he understood her need to just voice what she felt in her heart without the reassurance of a response. In that moment she wasn’t looking for comfort but just confession.

“I’m so scared because I think I love you too much. I’m scared because it’s taken me all this time to realize just how much I love you, just how badly I need you in my life and I don’t know what to do with the idea of leaving you.” Still she refused to look at him but Alex was comforted by the mere strength that was returning to her once empty voice. “I’m seventeen years old,” Her eyes opened slowly and all she could see in Alex’s eyes was a deep sense of love and patience, two things no one would ever have believed Alex to possess at seventeen. “So this can’t be love…right?”

She was looking to him to assure her but Alex knew that even if he wished to tell her that this was that love that some searched their whole lives for, he also knew he couldn’t tell her what to feel.

Instead he rested his forehead against hers, their warm moist breathing blowing against each other’s lips.

“I know that if this isn’t love, I don’t want it.” Alex admitted quietly. “I’m pretty sure it’d kill me, I can barely stand feeling so much at once as it is—I feel like I’ll explode.” But she was still looking at him expectantly, still looking to him to tell her what to feel. “I don’t know if this is love or not, Starbuck.” The sound of her old nickname made her heart swell. “But I do know I want you. Only you. Love or not, I’ll never feel this way about anyone but you.”

A cry escaped Juliette’s lips and she flung herself at Alex, her arms locking around his neck and her lips instantly finding his greedily.

“I’ll never feel this way about anyone but you.” She echoed, her voice muffled against his mouth.

“Only you.” He affirmed.

Her shirt was in the sink, her bra hanging off the ledge; his shirt and pants pooling at the floor beneath their feet. Juliette clung to Alex like a lifeline and he wrapped her in his warm arms, shielding her from the frigid air that surrounded them.

“I’ll never let you go,” He breathed and Juliette could only moan in response.

“I’ll love you forever.” She promised but the words were lost in a whimper.

They moved together and suddenly Alex had her pressed against the wall shaking.

“Forever.” Was all he could manage and they were moving again only now, pleasantly surprised, Alex found that he was the one pinned to the wall and Juliette grinned wickedly at him as her hands planted themselves on either side of his head.

“That’s my girl.” He smirked and Juliette giggled.

They continued on in this way, so absorbed in their own little world that neither heard the knocks from the opposite side of the door, blissfully unaware of the impatient protests.

For just a little while, Juliette and Alex were granted their moment together. For just a little while they were permitted to succumb to each other, in their own blissful little world.

For just a little while they could convince themselves that all was right.

For just a little while everything was okay.